Transfer XP Programs to Win 7

[Char Jackson]

I strongly disagree. I don't recommend backup to a second internal
non-removable hard drive because it leaves you susceptible to
simultaneous loss of the original and backup to many of the most
common dangers: severe power glitches, nearby lightning strikes, virus
attacks, even theft of the computer.

None of the risks you mentioned have been a factor for me or my
customers. I don't discourage people from using multiple internal
drives because they are generally much faster than external units,
more reliable, no cables for the kids or pets to pull on, and when
they bring me a system for repair it's all there, etc. External
storage has its own list of pros and cons, but overall I tend to favor
internal storage. YMMV

On my own system, for example, I have 7 TB of internal storage and
1.75TB of external storage, so you can see where my priorities are.

In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept
in the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if the
life of your business depends on your data) you should have multiple
generations of backup, and at least one of those generations should be
stored off-site.

First, I wasn't talking about secure backups. I was talking about
system backups for the typical home user. If someone wants to do as
you suggest, (multiple generations, off-site storage, etc), I don't
discourage it, but at the same time it's not something I proactively
recommend since it's severe overkill for most people that I deal with,
including myself.

 

[Pulse]

That's what I do these days.

I'm with you 100%. I backup to an external USB Hard drive. It makes no
sense to backup to any hard drive on the same PC.

 

[Al Smith]

I'm with you 100%. I backup to an external USB Hard drive. It makes no
sense to backup to any hard drive on the same PC.

I disagree. A backup to a second hard drive on the same PC will
save your bacon in nine out of ten cases where there is a problem
with the original data. Granted, it's not as secure as backing up
to external media, but it is a lot better than nothing.

-Al-

 

[PeeCee]

Hi,

My neighbour has a laptop running XP whose MB has just failed. He has
just purchased a new laptop with Win 7.

The HD on the old machine is OK. He has lots of programs on this drive
which will take forever to reinstall on the new machine.

Is there any way that these programs can be copied (ghosted / imaged)
across to the new comp. so they will run? I'm thinking maybe under a
VM although I have no experience of this.

TIA for any assistance.

Duncan.

Duncan

It is interesting so many that replied to your post failed to grasp that the
XP system is no longer running.
Under those circumstances Transfer software 'will not work' as it has to be
installed on both systems and the PC's connected by a LAN cable or other
transfer vehicle.
Kinda hard to do if the motherboard on one is dead!

One option your neighbour has is to source a second hand motherboard of
exactly the same brand/model and get the old XP machine running again.
However my experience of these whiz bang transfer all programs has been
disappointing.
Particularly going from one major version of Windows to another.
Many program install routines load totally different support files (dll's,
ocs's etc) depending on the version of Windows being installed to.
Practically all you can rely on is document, email and addressbook transfer
(ie personal data)
Programs will have to be reinstalled from scratch if you want any hope they
will work in the new OS.
(and some won't work no matter how much you fiddle with the compatibility
settings)

Your Idea to use a VM on the other hand is probably the only 'practical'
option.

This site
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-a-virtual-machine-image-of-your-existing-hard-drive-windows/
goes through the steps required to create a VM image with Disk2vhd, a free
Sysinternals utility.
All you would have to do is mount the old XP hard drive in another PC or
even a USB caddy and choose that HD to image with Disk2vhd.
According to that site you can then load the Vhd straight into Vista or
Win7.
Whether that requires XPMode or Virtual PC I am unable to say as I haven't
as yet tried it out.
Virtual PC is a free download anyway so it shouldn't be a problem getting
the vhd going.

It looks interesting as I have heaps of old hard drives here from as far
back as the DOS day's.
Running them as a VHD sounds just the ticket to keep em going with out the
hardware hastles.

Best
Paul.

 

[Char Jackson]

Duncan

It is interesting so many that replied to your post failed to grasp that the
XP system is no longer running.
Under those circumstances Transfer software 'will not work' as it has to be
installed on both systems and the PC's connected by a LAN cable or other
transfer vehicle.
Kinda hard to do if the motherboard on one is dead!

One option your neighbour has is to source a second hand motherboard of
exactly the same brand/model and get the old XP machine running again.

I've had very good luck temp installing whatever motherboard I
happened to have on hand. Windows freaks out a little during that
first boot, asks for drivers for this and that, but with some luck and
a couple of reboots, all is reasonably well, at least well enough to
access the drives.

 

[PeeCee]

I've had very good luck temp installing whatever motherboard I
happened to have on hand. Windows freaks out a little during that
first boot, asks for drivers for this and that, but with some luck and
a couple of reboots, all is reasonably well, at least well enough to
access the drives.

Can't dispute that as I have had the same experience 'sometimes'
More often though I get a boot loop, or WGA sticks it's ugly mug in the way
and demands Activation before allowing access to the desktop.
Access to the desktop is needed of course to install the drivers for the
NIC, without which you have to do a phone activation.
A real "PAIN" in the A..

From what I've seen sticking to the same chipset family seems to help.

FWIW
Paul.

 

[Gordon]

You misunderstand me. I use the same partition for both system and
programs (for the reasons you gave) and another 2 for data (for
organization reasons) but these 2 could easily be one.

Ah. My apologies....

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I disagree. A backup to a second hard drive on the same PC will save your
bacon in nine out of ten cases where there is a problem with the original
data. Granted, it's not as secure as backing up to external media, but it is
a lot better than nothing.

-Al-

OTOH, some people have an all-in-one computer, where (in most cases) an
internal hard drive is impossible; the same is true of laptops. You
could, of course, divide that drive into two partitions and back up
onto the second, but let's hope you don't

Anyway, I've gotten out of the habit of building or buying computers in
a case that I can mount a second drive in, so now I'm forced to use an
external drive - which is what I used to do anyway.

 

[Brian Gregory [UK]]

I disagree. A backup to a second hard drive on the same PC will save your
bacon in nine out of ten cases where there is a problem with the original
data. Granted, it's not as secure as backing up to external media, but it
is a lot better than nothing.

But it's not just that if the PC gets nicked the backup goes too. Also the
fact that the external disk is disconnected when it's not needed protects it
from damage by trojans and human idiots and vandals.

You can reduce the problems caused by the external drive being much slower
by mostly doing differential backups.

 

[Brian Gregory [UK]]

Duncan

It is interesting so many that replied to your post failed to grasp that
the XP system is no longer running.
Under those circumstances Transfer software 'will not work' as it has to
be installed on both systems and the PC's connected by a LAN cable or
other transfer vehicle.
Kinda hard to do if the motherboard on one is dead!

IIRC the Laplink software mentioned is called 'Windows 7 Migration' or
something. So I assume it is designed for going from XP to 7 on a single PC.

 

[Al Smith]

OTOH, some people have an all-in-one computer, where (in most cases) an
internal hard drive is impossible; the same is true of laptops. You
could, of course, divide that drive into two partitions and back up onto
the second, but let's hope you don't

Anyway, I've gotten out of the habit of building or buying computers in
a case that I can mount a second drive in, so now I'm forced to use an
external drive - which is what I used to do anyway.

An external drive's certainly the better choice. My backups have
customarily been to both an additional hard drive in my desktop
case, and to an external USB hard drive. I like to keep at least
two backup mirrors of my C:\ drive, which contains all my vital
material. I also backup my critical data files separately on a
daily basis.

Right now I'm running without a complete backup, waiting for a
second hard drive to arrive through the mail that I will install
in my new Dell. That will give me the space I need to get my
backups in order. I will put one backup of the C:\ drive on this
second internal drive,and another mirror on a 1 TB USB external
hard drive that will only be turned on for backups.

-Al-

 

[Bill Bradshaw]

I just use external drives because they are now so cheap. I have several WD
passports here that with backup compression I can save several dated backups
to each one. So I just rotate them and can get 3 or 4 backups on each one.

 

[Laplink]

PCmover

As others have suggested, Laplink PCmover is the tried and true way to move programs, files and settings from an old PC to a new PC. Also we now support an in-place upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 on the SAME computer.

Check out: www.laplink.com/pcmover for more info.

Or contact me directly at: (e-mail address removed) Thanks, Daniel.

Hi,

My neighbour has a laptop running XP whose MB has just failed. He has
just purchased a new laptop with Win 7.

The HD on the old machine is OK. He has lots of programs on this drive
which will take forever to reinstall on the new machine.

Is there any way that these programs can be copied (ghosted / imaged)
across to the new comp. so they will run? I'm thinking maybe under a
VM although I have no experience of this.

TIA for any assistance.

Duncan.

 

[Appmen]

You may consider to use WET (windows easy transfer) and PickMeApp: two free solutions to migrate from XP to Windows 7. WET may transfer your XP program settings to Win 7 while portable PickMeApp tool may transfer programs from XP to Windows 7. PickMeApp claims to support unlimited number of programs. This helps to transfer all software and system settings